


stan uris' five step plan (laminated, double spaced)

by robinsegg



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Character Study, Found family that is all dealing with their own shit, Gen, Nonlinear Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, The long and arduous process of recovery that does not in fact have an end, Trauma, the (tricky) power of friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 03:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20808071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinsegg/pseuds/robinsegg
Summary: All his friends could beat the devil in a game of cards or a race or a metaphorical fiddle contest but Stan thinks he’d cry if he saw the devil sauntering toward him. He thinks he’d lay down forever, you know, wonder if it was a miracle or a divine punishment happening upon him, wonder if that was the same thing, roll over in his makeshift grave and toss and turn because the world wobbled on its axis and Stan fell out.





	stan uris' five step plan (laminated, double spaced)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. I spent a lot of time being obsessed with It 2017 and reluctantly It 2019 and I actually surprisingly enough read the book and for a lot of reasons including that I relate much too heavily to Stan I decided that Stan was not only my favorite character but that he was very underrated because I am extremely self absorbed. This is a fic about being traumatized and neurodivergent and it doesn't really have a plot but I love it a lot. I should definitely be working on my other fics right now, but it's okay! Hope you all enjoy.

Stan Uris toes off his shoes and steps up to the edge.

This is how you begin to breathe again. 

First, you choke. You’re a baby again and the umbilical cord is tied around your neck. It’s a natural extension of your mother, it’s the part giving you life and it’s choking the life out of you. Then you’re thrust out into the world and, well, they have to untie the umbilical cord, right? Or are you just going to walk around the world with a symbol of your life and death constantly about to choke you?

Why the fuck do people wear scarves, Stanley thinks. He’s staring at a pretty girl with a pretty little infinity scarf. It has cartoony designs of paper airplanes and it looks soft and pink. She looks soft and rosy-cheeked, but her hands are ugly. Boyish, bulging veins and protruding knuckles. Another girl giggles and points him out to her, and he flushes and turns back down to his notebook. He raises a hand to his face unconsciously, starts rubbing at his scars like they itch again.

His scars itch a lot. Sometimes Stan remembers them and they start to itch. He doesn’t really forget about them but he… sometimes he isn’t reminded of them. But he doesn’t forget. He thinks the scars are the umbilical cord around his neck. He thinks there’s a lot that could be his umbilical cord.

So. Breathing. 

Stan likes to do studies. He likes research and analysis, likes hard numbers and statistics. When he watches, he can fade away a little. So he watches.

Bill barely breathes, but that’s how he breathes. Rides his bike faster than he can really handle, stomps on his stutter as much as possible, pretends that he isn’t wheeling off into the road on purpose instead of by accident. He’s living for leaving, joining clubs and the baseball team and going for runs before the sun’s out. 

He doesn’t invite them over to his house unless his parents aren’t home.

“G-g-get off,” he nearly shrieks when Richie sits down at the piano one day. Richie pauses, hands raised in melodramatic imitation of a pianist.

It’s nearly comical how quickly Bill flushes, and Stan murmurs funny names of birds as he watches.

“Sorry, I- I- I just--” And Richie interrupts and rattles off some inane comment, pulling out a worm on a string as he does so. Forgotten, sure. But they avoid the piano from then on. Bill gets a little louder, a little more clearly exuberant, and lets Bev pick whatever they’ll do for the day. 

Stan watches Bill, because that’s sort of his job. He watches all of them and is the neutral observer with the careful straight face and he doesn’t step in unless he needs to, but who is he to say when he needs to step in?

But none of them have died yet. So. Must count for something.

Bill is a crier. He doesn’t try to be but he’s one of those sweet boys, those sensitive-masculine boys so it’s more okay for him to cry a lot. Not that it’s ever okay, but Bill can cry and punch you at the same time, so maybe that’s part of it. Bill can do a lot of weird stuff like that, get beaten up and not shed a tear but see his friends get upset and lose his mind.

Stan thinks Bill’s afraid, more afraid then he lets on. Or maybe not afraid, but sad. Sadder than they know. His heart’s in his throat too often. Bill looks at him one day, with that sad look on his face, and Stan feels his throat close up.

He’s scared, he thinks. He’s scared that Bill will tell him something and Stan won’t know what to do. 

“What do- do- do you think about d-death?” Bill says, casual-but-not, and Stan freezes up.

Slowly, like talking to a startled animal, he asks, “What do you mean?”

“You- you- you’re religious, r-right? Do you ever talk about d-death with your-- parents?” That’s where it hits, of course. Death and family.

Honestly, Stan hasn’t ever really needed to. When Georgie and Betty Ripsom and all the other kids went missing, his parents sent him worried looks and sat him down and told him to be safe and to stay in a group and that maybe he should think about not staying out so late his friends, and wouldn’t it be nice to have family game nights again, and he could even invite Richie if Stan wanted to?

Stan would never invite Richie over to family game night, but he appreciated the thought. 

He’d never experienced a loss like that.

Stan twists his hands in his lap. “Bill, your-- parents should be talking to you about this. Mine did, even when it wasn’t close. It’s-- they’re the adults, you know? You shouldn’t hold it all in your shoulders,” he says, looking up. “You’re hurt. They’re hurt too but-- it’s not fair. For you. You know? You’re still their kid even if they-- even if they don’t know how to move on.”

Bill looks at him for a long second, and he’s got those big puppy eyes, and Stan doesn’t know what to do. They’re sat in Bill’s room. They don’t usually hang out alone, not for any reason, but it’s still notable. Stan thinks Bill must’ve been thinking about this a while. Stan thinks Bill must’ve expected Stan to come out with some Jewish proverb that solves all his problems, and as he watches him start to cry, he thinks that maybe Bill didn’t expect that. 

When Stan gets angry he cries. His parents never said it to his face, but he knew they thought he was fragile. Not delicate, not Eddie. But fragile. Bird-boned and single-minded, visibly distressed if his comforts were taken away, obsessive about his pressed pants and perfectly tucked in shirts. Kicked over by the wind and unsuited for small town theocracy. They’re not mean about it, but they worry. Tell Stan he doesn’t have to keep the kippah on at school and that he doesn’t need to carry around his bird book all the time, and Stan thinks that’s giving up. See, that’s not fragile of him, refusing to give up.

And he isn’t-- _sensitive_. Not like Eddie. Even though Eddie isn’t really sensitive, just angry and loud and constant.

But everyone thinks of him like Eddie, he knows that. What they’re really thinking is he’s a faggot. They’ve all been called that, but they don’t mean gay when they talk about the others, not really, not in the same way. Not in the way that means _obvious_. Stan doesn’t try to be obvious. He doesn’t think he looks at boys more than girls, doesn’t think he’s all that effeminate. He’s not a mama’s boy. And he knows that he’s comparing himself to Eddie when he thinks all these things, when he makes up a list and doesn’t check anything off. He knows it’s wrong to do that, and that it isn’t Eddie’s fault, but it’s not like Stan’s the one calling Eddie a fairy.

The umbilical cord stays tight around his neck when Stan watches Eddie, sometimes. He’s not sure if it’s jealousy or shame or pride, or an ugly mix of the three that makes him feel like someone reached inside his body and rearranged all the parts in there. But he looks at Eddie and feels like he’s choking sometimes, like he’s staring at rows and rows of teeth closing around his head. It’s not fair.

Eddie hyperventilates more than he does breathe. But that was obvious if you ever saw him outside of school. 

In school Eddie’s quiet, meek, hiding in the backs of classrooms and never raising his hand. That doesn’t help him much when he wears pink polos and carries a fanny pack around. At least he’s starting to phase out the fanny pack.

Out of school, he’s insufferable. He’s school-Eddie’s evil twin. Loud and angry and vicious, the energy of a bag of angry wet cats in the body of a tiny neurotic teenager.

People compare them but he can never really see the similarities, only the differences. 

Eddie is loud and angry and rude. He panics out loud about germs but not in an endearing way, in a holier-than-thou ‘you need to get that checked out or you’ll die you know if you were smarter about this stuff you wouldn’t be in this situation’ way. He’s irritating on purpose and sometimes Stan wants to stab him just to shut him up.

Eddie lectures him about hygiene, preens at Richie’s constant attention but pretends not to, is light and compact enough to get picked up and carried around by Mike, but Stan isn’t.

Mike once told him about how deer will collapse sometimes, if they’re in danger. Stan had nodded and rested his head on his knees, watching him ramble and walk around the room. He’d been in a corner of the couch, pretending that he didn’t exist or that Mike didn’t see him, pretending that Mike acted like that when he was alone, that they were comfortable enough around each other to be as real as possible. Stan thinks that a collapsing deer is an idiot and that he’s more likely than not a collapsing deer.

Which is why he doesn’t understand him and Eddie being lumped together. Eddie goes insane in situations where Stan goes limp. He runs faster than he speaks, runs as fast as Bill rides his bike. All his friends could beat the devil in a game of cards or a race or a metaphorical fiddle contest but Stan thinks he’d cry if he saw the devil sauntering toward him. He thinks he’d lay down forever, you know, wonder if it was a miracle or a divine punishment happening upon him, wonder if that was the same thing, roll over in his makeshift grave and toss and turn because the world wobbled on its axis and Stan fell out.

As if Richie would even let that happen.

Richie’s something else, though. Doesn’t breathe and doesn’t choke but fills up the air with enough words to get some air in. 

Richie’s clingy. Stan’s more clingy. Richie tells vulgar jokes and Stam grimaces and tells an incomprehensible one he still laughs at because Richie’s good like that, laughs when no one else laughs even if it’s not for the right reasons.

It looks like Richie’s lighting a fire sometimes. Lets the smoke fill up and barely takes a breath and Stan has to drag him out of the locked burning room before he dies of smoke inhalation. Or something like that. Sometimes things don’t mean other things. Richie tells him that.

Richie says, “Stanny my manny nanny bo-banny, the world’s the world.” He’s lying upside down on Stan’s bed, head hanging off and glasses hanging by a thread. Stan cringes when he sees it, resists the urge to shove the glasses straight on Richie’s face. He’s got socks on because Stan made him leave his gross mud-splatted shoes at the door, bright blue because that’s the worst you can get in this stupid town, but Richie wants funny ones, ones with lobsters and pineapples and bad jokes like the ones he saw in a joke shop in Portland or something. Can’t get ‘em here. Richie tried to take a marker to them once and his mother screamed ‘bloody murder’ according to his account that included shoving him in the washing machine. Stan has met Richie’s mom. She’s nice.

Richie says that and Stan stares. Wrinkles his nose a little and turns back to his calculus homework, which Richie was supposed to help him with. Stan doesn’t like when Richie gets introspective like that; sometimes he hits the mark. Oh sure, he’ll cycle through psychotherapy and will tell Stan’s he’s attracted to his mom and Eddie’s mom and, you know what, all our moms! You’re like a quadruple Oedipus! He’ll say Stan has the weirdest, most ridiculous disorders-- that he thinks he’s a cow, that he’ll go into a coma if he listens to Johnny Carson-- and then he’ll say shit like ‘the world’s the world,’ and Stan’ll start to fall apart.

“I know that,” he hisses. Richie makes a dissenting sound and Stan quickly says, “Help me with this. Differential equations. What the fuck.” And Richie has a big head or a big ego or a big dick or whatever over-inflated body part makes him this obnoxious, so he crows at the idea that Stan needs help from _him_. But he’s nice about it. Helpful. Sits close and lightly kicks at Stan’s foot as he lectures him.

But Richie lights a fire. He’s always on fire, kind of. Sometimes he lights another person on fire. Usually Bill, sometimes Eddie, never Stan. Stan’s too composed for that, he’s a little too cautious and smart for that, and it’s not his role. It’s his job to drag everyone off the edge. Him and Mike, dragging Beverly and Richie and Eddie away from the wrong end of a five story building. So he can’t let Richie push him off the edge, you know. Improper. Irresponsible. 

But Stan likes that, you know. He likes being proper and responsible. His role in the group is a good one, real reliable and subtly funny and the right kind of control freak, you know.

Richie is loud. They’re at the quarry, or the lake, or on the school roof, maybe. Doesn’t really matter where. He’s high, and Bev’s high, and they’re sloppily kissing even though Stan knows they don’t like each other like that. They pull off each other and Richie kisses Eddie’s cheek and asks if he’s jealous, and Eddie pushes him off and steals his joint. Then Richie walks towards Stan, and his pants are cuffed at two different lengths, and his hair is all messy, and his glasses are crooked. You know, Richie isn’t perfect. Stan isn’t either, but he gets pretty damn close. Richie doesn’t even try. He could, you know. He screams shitty song lyrics and assumes everyone is going to ignore when they trail off into his awful horrible self-deprecating jokes where you can hear the self hate dripping from every punchline that’s just “Trashmouth Tozier getting off another good one!”

Everytime Stan hears one he wants to call Richie selfish, wants to say these jokes aren’t funny because they aren’t jokes, wants to push Richie down and dunk him in a tub of water until he’s sober again, until everything is fine. He doesn’t do that, though. Stan sits them all down and makes sure they don’t do anything idiotic like jump off the roof.

See, Stan loves Richie. He doesn’t like to admit it, but they’re best friends and Stan is a little in love with him sometimes and he thinks Richie is the only one he doesn’t have to make sense for. But, you know, Stan can barely breathe just knowing he’s friends with all the losers. And Richie is so easy to read when you’re Stan, or anyone, really. His big bug eyes turned on Eddie like headlights constantly.

He doesn’t mind so much. He’s not full in love with Richie, he’s got standards. 

“The world to come,” Bev says, lying on her back, “Is gonna be yellow.”

“Puke yellow,” Richie adds. 

“No- no. Puke yellow isn’t in my world. It’ll be mustard yellow. Sunflower yellow. It’s gonna be yellow, is what’s important. I’ll maybe let other colors in. Reds. Oranges. Greens.”

This is Bev in one of her good moods, in one of her ‘the world could be beautiful one day’ moods. More often than not she’s in these moods, but it’s really a 53/47 split. 

Stan plays with a blade of grass and watches Bev and Richie argue about the best possible world. He leans against a tree, the same tree Mike is leaning against. They’re watchers, you know. 

Bev reminds him of a wounded soldier, kind of. She also reminds him of Carrie. 

Bev is scarily self destructive sometimes, but not in a way where she doesn’t realize. She does it on purpose, wheels herself off the edge of a cliff, knowing that everything will be fine but hoping that something might happen on the way down. How is Stan supposed to help when she’s like Richie in all the ways that count except for the fact that Stan can’t keep her in line by gripping the back of a t-shirt.

He guesses they’re all kind of self-destructive. But he doesn’t like the moods he gets into. The ones where he wants to burrow up in his friends’ sweaters, where he feels like the world wants him to burn down like Richie burns everything down, and he kind of hates it. He kind of hates being put together. There’s a noose around his neck, you know. There’s a burning hate in his heart for everything this town is made of, everything he’s not made of. But he wears his Polos buttoned all the way, irons his khakis in the way he likes it. So he has to be all together, or maybe he’ll fall apart.

There’s a story Stan used to be afraid of. Once upon a time, because all these stories start like that, there was a girl. She was real pretty, wore a real pretty scarf, but this time it’s red. Bright red and more like a bow you’d see on a present than a scarf. It was all silky and shiny, and wrapped tight around the girl’s neck, like she was the present and the world got the gift. And she’d get home, and she’d unwrap the gift, and her head would fall into her hands, and she’d start the day again by wrapping herself up all again. Stan can get a little melodramatic, but he thinks about the story and itches at his scars. Because he’s nothing if not a cliche.

He’s got that umbilical cord wrapped tight around his neck and maybe the thing is that it’s choking him but it’s keeping all his insides from falling apart, from everyone seeing the small and scared and angry creature cowering right inside his throat. He’s so angry sometimes. Feels like choking over the injustice of everything.

Stan’s a candle burning at both ends.

He toes off his shoes, does it real slowly, real neatly. Folds up his clothes all polite and sets them to the side. Then he jumps. Stomach drops out beneath him, limbs flail around, world rushes around him, it’s the whole shebang. SO WHAT, he inhales water and not air, SO WHAT, he slams into it and starts sinking, SO WHAT, Mike has to haul him up as he coughs up water. He wasn’t trying anything. He messed up a little. He was too focused on jumping he didn’t think about landing.

Let’s try that again.

Stan stands on the edge and watches all his friends drop off one by one, _plink_ plink _plink_ plink _plink_ plink into the water, tiny blurs, magic tricks of here-and-gone. He holds his breath and closes his eyes and the world rushes by but he doesn’t move, not really. Here-and-gone. 

So here’s step two: stop choking. Easy as that. Step three’s also stop choking, because you’re gonna fail at step two or you’re gonna fail at step three, depends. Recovery isn’t linear, his therapist likes to tell him. The TV therapists beg to differ. 

Step four is the hard one, but it’s real important: don’t let others stop breathing. You’re gonna want to stop breathing, but if there’s anything worse than choking and choking and nothing, it’s someone else doing the choking-choking-nothing routine. A bad comedy set done by Richie, choking-choking-nothing, predictable and awful. 

World’s ending, folks, make sure you’re here to see it.

Step five isn’t real. It doesn’t exist yet. What do you mean, it doesn’t exist yet? It doesn’t exist yet. Stan’s still on step three, straddling step four. What’s he gonna do, make a five step plan he can never finish? Because Stan knows as well as he knows he’ll die someday that he’s never making it past four. Four lets you double back. Step four tells you that you’re just as much of a pin-wheeling mess as the others, that you’re never gonna be past steps two and three. Step five is the void, because that’s after. What’s after? Now. Here. Forever. What qualifies as after-- Stan doesn’t know. Stan doesn’t want to know. Because it’s already after, and if it’s already after, then you know he’s failed. Stan knew he’d failed for a while, though. 

He doesn’t like failing, but a five step plan that isn’t actually five steps is bound to fail. 

Stan’s terrified of death. He’s gonna die someday though, and so he’s hurtling towards his greatest fear everyday, and you’re forced into the world kicking and screaming and dying from day one, from day _one_. You know, there’s a great world out there, Mike tells him. You know, the world’s the world, and the world’s gonna be yellow, and life isn’t fair because people die or are born hurt or they’re born with their brains knocked sideways, like Stanley Uris. 

Stan toes his shoes off and pinwheels off the edge and feels his brain knock a little sideways and then he resurfaces. And then he tries again. And it goes wrong. And again. And again. And it’s never gonna go _right_, is it? But what a surprise that is, when you’re jumping off the edge and doing it wrong from the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @[wellsforboys](https://wellsforboys.tumblr.com) or on twitter @[incaseofhistory](https://twitter.com/incaseofhistory)


End file.
